| American Minute with Bill Federer‘Old Hickory’ |
His Scots-Irish parents emigrated from Ireland two years before his birth.At age 13, Andrew Jackson joined a local militia to fight during the Revolutionary War.
 His eldest brother, Hugh, died during the Battle of Stono Ferry, June 20, 1779.
Andrew Jackson and another brother, Robert, were taken prisoner and nearly starved to death.
Ordered to polish the boots of a British officer, Jackson refused and was slashed with a sword across the hand, arm and head, leaving permanent scars. His brother died of smallpox which he contracted in prison.
Andrew Jackson’s mother, Elizabeth, cared for captured Americans on British prison ships in Charleston’s harbor where she contracted cholera and died. Andrew Jackson was an orphan at age 14. Jackson became a frontier country lawyer and in 1788 was appointed prosecutor.
In 1796, he was elected as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention, where he is credited with proposing the Indian name ‘Tennessee.’
Tennessee citizens elected Jackson a U.S. Congressman then U.S. Senator. In 1798, Jackson served as a judge on Tennessee’s Supreme Court.
Speculating in land, Jackson bought the Hermitage plantation near Nashville and was one of three investors who founded Memphis.
During the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson fought the Red Stick Creek Indians who had massacred 500 at Ft. Mims, Alabama. Sam Houston and David Crockett served under Jackson.
A strict battlefield officer, he was described as being “tough as old hickory,” leading to his nickname “Old Hickory”. Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans against the British in 1815.
He invaded Spanish Florida, defeated Seminole Indians and served as the Territorial Governor of Florida. Jacksonville, Florida is named for him.
Andrew Jackson carried bullet fragments in his body from duels, most notably from defending his wife’s honor.
The stressful personal attacks during his Presidential campaign contributed his wife Rachel’s death just three months before he took office. The 7th U.S. President, Andrew Jackson stated in his 2nd Inaugural:
“It is my fervent prayer to that Almighty Being before whom I now stand, and who has kept us in His hands from the infancy of our Republic to the present day… that He will…inspire the hearts of my fellow-citizens that we may be preserved from danger.” Andrew Jackson is considered the founder of the modern Democrat Party, which unfortunately supported slavery and the tragic Indian Removal Act.
He survived several attacks and assassination attempts. Jackson ended the corrupt Bank of the United States and paid off the national debt, the only time in U.S. history that was done. On December 30, 1836, Andrew Jackson wrote to his nephew, Colonel Andrew Jackson Donelson, upon the death of his wife, Emily, who had served as the unofficial First Lady of the United States:
“We cannot recall her, we are commanded by our dear Saviour, not to mourn for the dead, but for the living… She has changed a world of woe for a world of eternal happiness, and we ought to prepare as we too must follow…’The Lord’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.'”
On March 25, 1835, Andrew Jackson wrote in a letter: “I was brought up a rigid Presbyterian, to which I have always adhered. Our excellent Constitution guarantees to every one freedom of religion, and charity tells us (and you know Charity is the real basis of all true religion)…judge the tree by its fruit. All who profess Christianity believe in a Saviour, and that by and through Him we must be saved.”
Andrew Jackson concluded: “We ought, therefore, to consider all good Christians whose walks correspond with their professions, be they Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Baptist, Methodist or Roman Catholic.”
On JUNE 8, 1845, “Old Hickory” died. Of the Bible, Andrew Jackson stated: “That book, Sir, is the Rock upon which our republic rests.”
For God’s Glory Alone Thanks Bill Federer and www.AmericanMinute.com |
